Cullingworth nestles in Yorkshire's wonderful South Pennines and I have the pleasure and delight to be the village's Conservative Councillor. But these are my views - on politics, food, beer and the stupidity of those who want to tell me what to think or do. And a little on mushrooms.

Wednesday, 16 March 2011

"Rubbing two sticks together" - the Green Party's energy policy

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Britain's Green Party - led by that nannying fussbucket, Caroline Lucas - have an energy policy.

1. Investment in renewable sources – sun, wind, water power and biogas – must be hugely increased. Use of fossil fuels should be massively reduced, and phased out altogether where possible.

2. An end to nuclear power. It is expensive and dangerous, risking catastrophic accidents that could damage our health, environment, and economy for generations.

3. More efficient energy use, better conservation and insulation measures, and a massive increase in recycling – with stronger incentives to switch to renewable energy and use energy more efficiently.

4. Energy should be generated, stored and distributed more locally.

5 Action to end 'fuel poverty' subsidising insulation and conservation measures to make fuel bills affordable for all.

So we have a policy that focuses on expensive, inefficient means of generating electricity - a combination of unreliable wind power, the destruction of habitats to allow wave power and Dave installing a windmill on his roof. At the same time the Greens want to end fuel poverty - presumably through some sort of rationing system since the rest of their policy can only result in higher energy costs. Assuming, of course, the we're actually able to generate all the electricity we need from windmills and compost heaps.

This policy is stupid and irresponsible, will make energy more expensive and is likely to lead to brownouts and even power cuts while we try to make generation match demand (all those electric cars you like so much, Caroline). Yet we give this idiot airtime to expound her lunacy without challenge - even to the point of conflating the deaths in Japan's terrible earthquake with the nuclear power plants at Fukushima:

"1351 is the estimated death toll so far, but there are perhaps tens of thousands people missing in Miyagi alone. Four million people have been left without electricity amid the destruction in Tokyo.

"Clearly, the nuclear incidents at Fukushima, and elsewhere in Japan since the earthquake, are collectively one of the worst in the 50-year history of the international nuclear industry."

Well certainly the incidents are serious - indeed, Ms Lucas seems more concerned about these that with the unfolding humanitarian disasters - but so far no-one has been killed, injured or made ill by the situation at Fukishima. As environmentalist James Lovelock put it in the Guardian:

"There is a monstrous myth about nuclear power. I would make a strong guess that of the tens of thousands of people killed in Japan, none of them will be from nuclear power."

He said that people were "prejudiced" against nuclear power unreasonably. "It is very safe," he said. Chernobyl, for instance, was "an idiotic mess-up that could only have occurred in the Soviet Union", and according to UN estimates had killed only about 56 people. More people are routinely killed in oil refineries and coal mines, he pointed out.

But this doesn't stop Caroline's line of "nuclear, scary, scary":

The Green MP Caroline Lucas said the Japanese accident strengthened the case against new nuclear construction. "You will never be able to completely design out human error, design failure or natural disaster," said Lucas, whose party backs energy efficiency and more renewable energy to meet Britain's energy and climate change goals.

So no fossil fuels - have to stop that "runaway global warming" - and no nuclear. It really does look like Ms Lucas and her Green Party want us to live in rude huts and rub sticks together for our energy needs!